Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Friday, April 27, 2012

A Dichotomy

Are we supposed to believe Jonah Goldberg wrote this column? A sample:

If there were one thing I could impress upon people about the nature of the state, it’s that governments by their very nature want to make their citizens “legible.”

I borrow that word from James C. Scott, whose book Seeing Like a State left a lasting impression on me. Scott studied why the state has always seen “people who move around” to be the enemy. Around the world, according to Scott, states have historically seen nomadic peoples, herdsmen, slash-and-burn hill people, Gypsies, hunter-gatherers, vagrants, and runaway slaves and serfs as problems to be solved. States have tried to make these people stay in one place.

But as Scott examined “sedentarization” (making mobile people settle down), he realized this practice was simply part of a more fundamental drive of the state: to make the whole population legible to the state. The premodern state was “blind” to its subjects. But the modern state was determined first to see them, and then organize them. This is why so many rulers pushed for the universal usage of last names starting around 1600 (aristocrats had been using family or clan names for centuries already). The same goes with the push for more accurate addresses, the standardization of weights and measures, and of course the use of censuses and surveys. It’s much easier to collect taxes, conscript soldiers, fight crime, and put down rebellions if you know who people are and where they live.

And:

And this brings me to our current debate over Arizona’s immigration laws. Opponents like to conjure the police-state association of “Ihre papiere, bitte.” I think that’s wildly exaggerated (and so do several Supreme Court justices, apparently). But as someone who’s against a national ID card, I’m sympathetic to the concern nonetheless. The Constitution lists three federal crimes — treason, piracy, and counterfeiting — but today we have more than 4,500 federal crimes, all because the government in Washington wants to make the American people more legible. I don’t want to make that easier with a national ID card.

But what I wish liberal opponents would understand is that in a society where the government “gives” so much to its citizens, it’s inevitable that the state will pursue ways to more clearly demarcate the lines between the citizen and the non-citizen.
Most (but by no means all) conservatives I know would have few problems with large-scale immigration if we didn’t have a welfare state that bequeaths so many benefits on citizens and non-citizens alike. I myself am a huge fan of legal immigration. But if you try to see things like a state for a second, it’s simply unsustainable to have a libertarian immigration policy and a liberal welfare state. Ultimately, if you don’t want cops asking for your papers, you need to get rid of one or the other.

There’s a kind of argument-that-isn’t-an-argument that vexes me. I first started
to notice it on university campuses. I’ve spoken to a lot of college audiences.
Often, I will encounter an earnest student, much more serious looking than
the typical hippie with open-toed shoes and a closed mind. During the Q&A
session after my speech he will say something like “Mr. Goldberg, I may disagree
with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say
it.”

Then he will sit down, and the audience will applaud. Faculty
will nod proudly at this wiser-than-his-years hatchling under their
wings. What a glorious moment for everybody. Blessed are the bridge
builders.

My response? Who gives a rat’s ass?

It's very strange that one is informative, somewhat moderate, and civil while the other is pure Pantloadian. Perhaps he was just trying to raise his tone for National Review On-Line's discerning, intellectually sophisticated readership.

12 comments:

This is a really good catch, because no, it's basically not believable that the Doughmeister wrote such a measured, sophisticated thing all by himself. Maybe NR hired some really smart editor?

The only thing that makes me think it really is Goldberg is the characterization of Seeing Like a State. I haven't read it, but it doesn't seem at all to have to do with states "solving" the "problem" of nomadic people, and if I had to guess, I'd say Goldberg got that from something in the first five pages.

Finally, because Goldberg's combination of laziness and asshattery is endlessly funny to me: Scott's argument is that the state's "vision" and its drive to make its subjects "legible" is deeply authoritarian. The argument has fuck all to do with the Arizona immigration laws, and more to do with urban planning, but whatever, Goldberg is excusing/endorsing something Scott identifies as the most distilled forms of authoritarianism modernity has to offer.

Around the world, according to Scott, states have historically seen nomadic peoples, herdsmen, slash-and-burn hill people, Gypsies, hunter-gatherers, vagrants, and runaway slaves and serfs as problems to be solved.

That's odd, because from my observations, it's generally been people complaining to their government officials to do something about vagrants, illegal immigrants, nomadic types and so forth. In other words, "the State" is simply doing what its citizens demand that it to do.

Scott identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters. Let's see if they apply to Arizona's "arbitrary deportation of necessary labor" law:

Administrative ordering of nature and society by the state - check

A "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life - do Charles Murray-esque claims about the undesirability and impossibility of assimilating "those people" count here? As well as Jonah's claims that "you can't have a libertarian immigration policy and a liberal welfare state, because . . . math!"? I think so. Check.

A willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale interventions - there's a big check

A prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans - and an even bigger one!

Loosen your belt and relax, Jonah, you win the prize! Oh, I see you already *faaaarrrrrrrrrrrtt*

Heh. It's times like this (well, any time's a good time, actually) to bear in mind where JoGo came from and how he got to where he is: he rode his mama's coattails.

And what piece o' work Lucianne Goldberg is/was...counseled Linda Tripp to befriend Monica Lewinsky and con as much gossip about Bill Clinton as she could (by hook or by crook, including illegal wiretapping). Then, after Mama G. and Matt Drudge had set up the New Media Gravy Train (makes its own sauce!) fueled by a limitless thirst for all things Monica, Sonny Boy waddled up to the feeding trough, sucked in a tummyful of recycled sludge, tacked his byline on the effluvium that came out the other end, and called out: